


painkiller, painkiller, sneezing thing, fever thing

by Glitter_Lisp



Category: Descendants (Disney Movies)
Genre: Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Minor Harry Hook/Uma, Post-Descendants 3, Sick Harry Hook
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-13
Updated: 2019-08-13
Packaged: 2020-08-23 21:09:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,213
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20224717
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Glitter_Lisp/pseuds/Glitter_Lisp
Summary: Harry's immune system hasn't quite caught up with Auradon's flu, yet.





	painkiller, painkiller, sneezing thing, fever thing

**Author's Note:**

> This was supposed to be a quick Huma drabble but somehow it hit 4k and Uma never made it in. End me.
> 
> I am convinced that the Isle kids all catch every common cold and stomach bug under the sun for at least the first few years after they move to Auradon. Same with the Auradon kids after the barrier is lowered.

Harry felt… he wasn’t sure how he felt. Not good. Fuzzy, and a little cold, and sort of stretched thin, like a wet sock, maybe. Except he was dry, and also not a sock.

It was possible he wasn’t thinking entirely clearly. 

There was… medicine. Downstairs. Proper medicine, not like what they had had on the Isle. Painkillers were whiskey and whatever he could nick from Dr. Facilier. The hospital was whatever dark place he could find to hide in until he had recovered enough to defend himself from someone who might take advantage of a boy too sick to stand up straight. 

Bad thoughts. Unhappy thoughts. Thoughts easy to brush away, as dizzy and unfocused as he was. He stumbled down the stairs, or at least he thought he must have because he was, suddenly, standing in the kitchen. He fumbled for the light switch, then winced and turned the light back off, nauseated by the sudden, sharp pain in his head that the abrupt brightness had caused. 

Whatever. He didn’t spend much time at Evie’s, but he was familiar enough with the layout of the room to make his way over to the cabinet without tripping. Or he should have been, but his feet felt too far away to properly control, and he staggered into both the table and the counter as he made his way towards the other end of the kitchen. The table held him up fine when he bumped into it. The counter did the same, but it also caught his hip meanly. It was going to bruise later. From the throbbing ache of it, it would probably be spectacular; he made an absent note in the back of his mind to take a picture to send to Gil. Gil would find it both impressive and hilarious. 

It didn’t feel impressive or hilarious at the moment, but he was very carefully ignoring it as he dug into the cabinet above him. Evie had a nice little spinning tray on the lowest shelf, covered in thin little boxes and white pill bottles with brightly colored lids. He stared blankly, then picked up the whole tray and set it as carefully as he could on the counter by the sink. There was just enough moonlight coming through the window above it that he could see without burning his eyes, and he began carefully picking his way through the array of medicine. 

Why did they all have so many  _ names _ ? They couldn’t just say what they did, had to have fancy names that sounded like a particularly wet sneeze. What the hell was an  _ acetaminophen?  _

Oh, painkiller. He set that bottle to the side, then picked out a box of something that said it helped with nausea, and another painkiller. There was one bottle that said fever reducer, and another box with a name he couldn’t read but that showed someone blowing their nose, so he snagged that too. Might help with his dripping nose and– oh, the bag of candy was also medicine. Cherry flavored throat lozenges. For sore throats and coughing. Excellent. He wasn’t coughing yet, but the warning tickle in the back of his dry mouth had him snagging a handful of hard candies and stuffing them in the pocket of his soft sleep pants.

He dumped a handful of the acetaminophens into his palm, reconsidered, and returned all but one pill to the bottle. There was no telling how strong Auradon medicine was. He did the same with the rest of his finds, popped them in his mouth, and immediately gagged as several of them stuck to his tongue. What was  _ wrong  _ with this place? Who made medicine you couldn’t even take?

He didn’t have time to wonder on it long, because his body decided that gagging was so much fun he might as well go all the way and vomit into Evie’s sink. It was a process that took a few unpleasant minutes, and he glared at the so-called nausea reducer as he was bent over and spitting the taste out of his mouth. Had he been able to swallow the damn things, that wouldn’t have happened. 

He rinsed his mouth out, then had the blindingly obvious thought that he should have taken the pills with water. 

It took him a few minutes to count out his medicine again. His fingers were shaking, and he had been able to ignore it before but the cool stone on his bare feet left them feeling icy and sore. He shifted uncomfortably in place, ducked his head under the sink, and carefully took the handful of pills one at a time.

He stood shivering at the sink for another moment, halfway hoping that they would all start working immediately. When nothing happened, he sighed and started to clean up his mess. He couldn’t manage it with the way his hands were shaking, though, and even if they were steady he couldn’t quite see right between the dark room and his dry and itching eyes. It bothered him to leave them out for someone to find in the morning, but it was probably a better option than knocking them all to the floor while trying to put them away. 

He popped a candy in his mouth. Sweet, a little bitter, and only a poor imitation of real cherries. Much better than anything he’d had growing up, though, and he hummed happily as he rolled it around in his mouth. All he had to do was go back upstairs, sleep it off, and… oh. Upstairs. 

He eyed the dark hallway across the room. He’d had enough trouble going  _ down _ the stairs. Now he was still trembling from having been sick only a few minutes ago, and his body felt achy and heavy. The stairs didn’t seem like a good option. He could sleep under the table, or in the pantry, somewhere quiet and enclosed, but those sounded so cold. He knew it was late enough in the summer that he should be feeling uncomfortably warm, even at night, but that didn’t stop the chills racking his body. 

He wrapped his arms around himself and gritted his teeth. It was nice of Evie to loan him clothes to sleep in, especially when he had shown up so unexpectedly, but he would kill for something heavier than the thin t-shirt and pants she had given him. 

He was stumbling towards Evie’s workroom before he had fully processed the thought that there must be blankets in there, or at least enough fabric that he could pull over himself like a blanket. Better yet, it was sure to be warmer out there than it was inside.

He could have cried when he stepped into the warm, muggy air of the greenhouse. It should have been uncomfortable—probably was, if the sweat trickling down his back was any indication—but it felt more like a hot drink on a cold day, soothing and homey. He eyed the bolts of fabric around the room, looking for something that looked warm, but they were all so big, either standing upright or stacked on top of each other so that he didn’t think he could pull one out without sending the whole pile to the ground. He hadn’t even wanted to leave the medicine out in the kitchen. He wasn’t about to wreck Evie’s workspace. 

Finally, his eyes lit on something he could use. Hanging over a chair near the back of the room was a large, half-finished coat, thick and sturdy. Harry shuffled his way over and fumbled it on. He would put it back when he woke up. He wouldn’t even take out the straight pins stuck around the bottom hem, and Evie would hardly notice he had even used it. He would have to pay her back for the medicine he had taken, but that was something to worry about in the morning. 

For now, he tucked the oversized coat tighter around himself and look blearily around the room until he saw a decent corner to sleep, an empty square of floor between a table on one side and a crate of fabric scraps on the other. A little careful maneuvering had him tucked in between them, under the table and behind the crate so that he wasn’t visible from the door. He nodded blearily to himself, chewed and swallowed his candy so he wouldn’t choke on it in his sleep, and hunkered down in his coat to wait this thing out. 

—————

“-you are! I’ve been looking… sick about you… hear me?”

His head was swimming. His eyes felt crusty and dry when he opened them, and it took him a few long seconds to blink the sleep out of his eyes enough to actually see. As soon as he did, though, he kicked his leg out in reflex at the silhouetted figure looming over him. It connected with something hard, and they yelped. Harry rolled to the side away from them and out from under the table, then jumped to his feet, staggered, and caught himself against the wall. His free hand scrambled across the table’s surface for something, anything, and his stomach lurched when his hand found a pair of scissors. He wasn’t sure if it was relief (a weapon, thank evil), frustration (a really  _ shitty _ weapon, fuck), or just nausea, so he kept his mouth closed as he braced himself with one hand on the table and brandished the scissors like a dagger. 

“What the hell, Harry!”

He blinked. He… knew that voice? The arm holding up the scissors was trembling like he was holding a lead weight, and he let it drop slowly to his side as his vision finally cleared. “Evie?”

Evie, sitting on the floor and clutching her shin, nodded warily. “Are you okay?” she asked. Harry looked dumbly at the scissors in his hand, then set them carefully on the table. 

“D’I kick you?” he rasped. “M’sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Evie said, climbing to her feet and still watching him cautiously. It wasn’t quite fear, not even close to it really, but it was so different from what he’d grown used to since coming here that it brought an unexpected burn of tears to his eyes. Evie’s expression went from cautious to alarmed, and that just made it worse. “Woah, hey, what’s wrong?”

He sniffed, pathetic and stupid, and ducked his head. “I don’t feel good,” he mumbled. He was achy and tired and  _ still _ cold, except for the burning flush around his face and neck, and he wanted to pull his coat on tighter. As unsteady as he felt, though, there was a good chance that if he let go of the table he would topple over. 

Evie’s expression softened. “I can see that. You want to come inside? I can get you some more medicine, and maybe some tea.”

Harry stared doubtfully at his own feet, bare toes sticking out from under the over-long legs of his pajama pants. “’m really dizzy,” he admitted. His throat felt like it was going to crack in two when he spoke; he tried to clear it, but that just set off a coughing fit that had him bent nearly double, one hand over his mouth and the other holding onto the edge of the table with a death grip. When he was done and could catch his breath again, he sank clumsily to the floor, one leg folded underneath him and the other stretched out in front of him. He wheezed for a moment afterwards, struggling to pull in air when his throat was full of thorns and his lungs felt like sandpaper. 

“Hey.” 

He looked up blearily to see Evie kneeling in front of him. She was careful this time not to be above him. Distantly he appreciated the effort, but she didn’t have to worry; that first burst of energy was all he had in him. 

“Yeah?”

“Do you mind if I feel your forehead?” Evie asked. “You just look a little flushed. I want to see if you have a fever.”

Harry couldn’t convince his throat to work again, so he just nodded and let his eyes drift shut. Evie’s hands were cool on his burning face, and he pressed into them with a sigh as she hummed thoughtfully. “Yeah, definitely warmer than you should be. Do you remember what you took last night? I don’t want to give you anything if you’ve already maxed out.”

Harry tried to open his eyes, got his heavy eyelids halfway up, then gave it up as a bad job and let them sink shut again. “Dunno. S’m’thin.”

Evie clucked her tongue and brushed his sweaty hair back from his forehead. “Poor thing. Can you get inside if I help you walk, do you think? I’d rather have you somewhere more comfortable. Come on, up you get.”

She didn’t give him much chance to argue, simply hauled him up with surprising strength and slung his arm over her shoulders. It was easier to walk with her support, but he still kept his eyes closed. He could probably trust her to walk him to the sofa, at least, and the morning light was doing nothing to help his headache. Actually, it was brighter than it should be for morning, and he didn’t think that was just his light-sensitive eyes.

“T’m s’it?” he mumbled. He couldn’t see it, but he could hear the frown on her voice when she spoke. 

“What was that?”

“Time is it,” he repeated as clearly as he could, letting his head hang limply as the two of them shuffled into the living room.

Evie grunted as she helped him lower himself into the sofa, where he immediately snagged a throw pillow and wrapped his arms around it, childishly wanting something to cuddle with. “Oh, it’s… almost twelve now.”

He cracked one eye open to frown at her. “Slept that much?”

“Guess so. No, wait, don’t lie down,” Evie said hurriedly, catching him when he started to tilt dangerously. He scowled—he was  _ tired— _ and she sighed and patted his cheek. “We need to get some water in you. Sit tight. I’ll get you a glass, then start on some tea for you, okay? Then you can sleep.”

Harry groaned and buried his face in the silky tassels around the pillow’s edge, but he nodded. He heard Evie’s footsteps retreat, and he rubbed his cheek against the fringe. It was soft. 

“I’ve got a few different kinds here,” Evie said from very far away. He blinked his eyes open and looked up muzzily. He wasn’t supposed to be sleeping yet, right. “Slippery elm would be best for your throat, but since you’ve been sick I think something a little more palatable might be better. You like licorice, don’t you?”

He nodded dumbly, too tired and sore to answer. He did like licorice. 

“That’s what I thought,” Evie said brightly. “We’ll just give that a minute to get the kettle going. Until then, try to drink some water, okay?”

Like magic, she was suddenly standing in front of him. He reached out to take the glass she was holding and grimaced when his hands shook so badly water sloshed out of the cup. Evie snatched it out of his hands and rolled her eyes when he scowled. “Relax, I’m not going to hold it for you.” Instead, she drained half the glass herself and handed it back. It still shook, but nothing else spilled. “I just don’t want you getting any on my couch,” she said loftily, like she hadn’t just saved him the embarrassment of needing to be hand fed. 

She did watch him like a hawk as he drank it to make sure he got it all down, then took the glass from him and returned to the kitchen. When she came back, the glass was once again half full, and she was holding an assortment of pill bottles balanced in her other hand. “All right. What did you already take? You don’t have to answer, just point.”

He cupped the glass in both hands, silently grateful that she wasn’t making him talk. The water was cool and soothing on his throat, but not so much that it had eased the underlying ache. He set it carefully down on the side table before making a grabbing gesture for the bottles. Evie rolled her eyes again but handed them over, and Harry carefully sorted them out. Painkiller, painkiller, sneezing thing, fever thing. He frowned and looked around as though the last little tube of pills would appear, then pointed over Evie’s shoulder at the kitchen.

She frowned. “Did I miss one? What else did you take?” He mimed sticking his finger down his throat, and Evie’s expression cleared. “Oh, the meclizine. That’s really more for motion sickness, but it makes sense that you would grab it. It probably helped you sleep, at least. Anything else?”

He fished the remaining hard candies out of his pocket and grimaced when he found both of them half melted. They were still contained in the wrapper, though, so he didn’t hesitate to peel the paper off of one and pop it in his mouth. Evie’s expression went oddly soft as he hollowed his cheeks around it, and he frowned in a silent question. She didn’t answer, just smiled and shook her head.

“Well, the good news is you can have more of everything except the nausea medicine. Here, two of each. Can you swallow around the lozenge?”

Harry swallowed the lozenge. When he stuck out his tongue to show Evie, she stared blankly for a few seconds, then doubled over laughing. “That’s not- that’s not what I meant,” she gasped, arms wrapped around her stomach as she slowly sank to sit on the coffee table across from him. “I meant can- can you-” She trailed off into wheezing laughter. While she tried to calm herself down, Harry carefully shook out his next dose of what felt like every damn pill in Auradon. Swallowing hurt, and it certainly wasn’t easier after choking down nearly an entire hard candy, but he’d done more difficult things under worse pain. 

He was just sipping the last of the water when the kettle whistled from the kitchen. Evie, still giggling intermittently, squeezed his knee and stood up to go get it, scooping up the leftover bottles and toting them with her. Harry set his glass down and drew his knees up to his chin, feet balanced on the edge of the sofa cushion and squashy pillow trapped between his chest and his thighs. He wrapped his arms around his legs, still shivering, and waited in a pitiful lump for Evie to get back.

She sighed when she walked in with two mugs of tea in her hand and saw him. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have laughed. I know you don’t feel well.” 

He shrugged. He didn’t mind her laughing. He wasn’t enjoying this, but there was no reason she should be miserable, too. 

“M’okay,” he mumbled. “Been sick before.”

“Yeah, I know,” Evie said, resuming her place on the coffee table and holding one of the mugs out to him. “Doesn’t make it more fun. Give that a few minutes to steep, it’s basically just hot water right now.” Harry nodded and set the mug down next to his empty glass, then shook the ends of his sleeves out over his hands to cover his cold fingers.

“Do you want a blanket?” Evie asked, eyeing him doubtfully. “That still has pins in it.”

Harry squeezed himself even tighter. The thought of uncurling long enough to take off the coat and wrap himself in a blanket made him shiver. “No.” Unless. “D’you need it?”

“No, no, it’s fine,” Evie said quickly. “That’s not a commission, just a side project. I just thought you might be chilly.”

He nodded at that and found he couldn’t hold himself any tighter. Evie hummed thoughtfully. 

“How about I get you a blanket anyways? Just to go over the coat. You still look cold. And I should probably get a thermometer and take your temperature properly.” Harry shrugged, and Evie seemed to take that as an agreement. “Okay, I’ll go get the one from your room, how’s that? You want anything else while I’m in there?”

Harry made a little hook shape with one finger—Evie’s mouth quirked up—then extended his thumb and pinkie to either side. “Hook and phone. Got it. Be back in a sec. Drink your tea, it should be ready by now.”

Evie hopped up again, patted his shoulder, and handed him his tea as she brushed past him once more. He took a careful sip and grimaced. With his nose as stuffed up as it was, all he could taste was a dry, pasty sickness. The heat, at least, was nice, and he got distracted holding it in his mouth before letting it slide warm and soothing down his throat.

He didn’t hear Evie come back, and he jumped when he felt the weight of the thick comforter from the guest room drop onto his shoulders. She had done him the favor of only filling up his mug halfway again, and he had already drunk half of that. When he dropped it, then, there wasn’t much to spill. Evie yelped behind him. He did the same, then started coughing.

“Oh my gosh, Harry, I’m so sorry,” Evie gasped, rushing around the sofa and catching the mug when it slipped from his lax fingers. “I should have- oh, gosh, I’m sorry, that was stupid of me, I wasn’t thinking.”

He waved away her apologies, too focused on trying to breathe. It took a few minutes, Evie hovering next to him and awkwardly rubbing his shoulder while he hacked into his fist, but finally he managed to catch his breath, wheezy as it was. His head was pounding, and whatever relief the water and the tea had given him had just been yanked away.

Evie didn’t stop him from flopping onto his side this time, simply tugged the comforter up over his shoulder. He pulled it up further, nearly up to his ears, and allowed her to tuck it around him. She took a moment to arrange his coat so he wasn’t stabbing himself—and he probably should take it off now, but it seemed like a horrible amount of effort—then smoothed the blanket down, leaving him warm and sleepy and only moderately miserable. He sniffed. He peered up at Evie. He sniffed again, then wriggled one hand out of his blanket cocoon. 

Evie stared blankly at it for a moment, flushed. “Right! Right, sorry, uh- phone, here, hook, here.” 

She held both hands out, one in each. He took the hook first, tucked it under the blanket against the pillow he still had pressed to his stomach, then grabbed the phone. “C’mere,” he mumbled, crooking a finger at her. “’m gonna text Uma.”

Evie frowned but came around the side of the couch so she could peer at his phone over his shoulder. “Do you… need help typing, or...?” He clicked open the camera app, and she snorted. “Or that. Okay. I’ll take a picture, hand it over.”

He tightened his grip on the phone and scowled over his shoulder at her as he flipped the camera to front-facing. “ _ C’mere _ ,” he repeated, too groggy to explain further. She understood what he meant, though, and knelt by the arm rest he was using as a pillow so the camera could capture both their faces, her exaggerated grimace and his red-rimmed eyes just barely visible over the edge of the blanket. He looked like a drowned rat. A drowned, resuscitated, and re-drowned rat. It was only made worse by Evie next to him, looking perfect as always even with her gargoyle-esque expression.

He hid his grin under the blanket and immediately sent the picture to Uma with the caption “man overboard” and several appropriate emojis. Crossbones, pirate flag, nauseous face, thermometer, sneezing face, crying face, the non-crossbones skull. Excellent. He sneezed, grimaced, and wiped the screen of his phone off on his t-shirt before snuggling down into his blanket nest. There. Uma knew he wouldn’t be able to meet her today, Evie was clearly fine with him camping out on her sofa even though he was only supposed to have stayed a night, and that meant it was okay to let his eyes drift shut.

He heard a distant buzzing sound, and then Evie huffing in amusement. “Uma just texted me  _ three times _ \- oh, and Gil, too, and Uma again- Is this Harriet’s number? When did Harriet get  _ my  _ number? Oh, for evil’s sake, I think I just got added to  _ Lost Revenge _ group chat-”

Harry snickered under his breath, then sneezed, then groaned and pulled the blanket over his head entirely. He emerged a moment later, unable to breathe under the thick comforter, to see Evie smiling fondly at him. “Get some rest, Harry. I’ll wake you up when it’s time for more medicine, and we’ll see about maybe getting some soup in you, okay? For now, just sleep.”

Harry nodded, snuggled deeper into the blanket, and did just that.

**Author's Note:**

> (If anyone was wondering, it's Lost Revenge SOP to bracket every single text you send with the crossbones and the pirate flag. Chan crossbones pirate flag tho.)
> 
> ((The first thing Harry did upon being presented with a cellphone was master the art of selfies and no one will ever convince me otherwise.))


End file.
